


Blue Orpheus

by northwest_southwest_central



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Established Relationship, Eye Trauma, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Gen, Healing, Introspection, Lap Pillow, Literal Sleeping Together, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26418175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northwest_southwest_central/pseuds/northwest_southwest_central
Summary: Marianne offers to try and heal Dimitri's missing eye.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Marianne von Edmund
Comments: 1
Kudos: 44





	Blue Orpheus

**Author's Note:**

> yeah I changed the summary because it had too many words
> 
> Disclaimer: all of the medical knowledge used to write this fic was gained by skimming through Stephen Biesty’s Incredible Body for five minutes. Hopefully the lack of research makes it seem more genuine (?)
> 
> Dimitri’s eye injury is not described in detail, but it’s still discussed, so consider this a content warning if you’re squeamish about that kind of thing.

On some nights, forgiveness will not find him so easily.

The handful of former students among them have taken to sleeping in their old bedrooms, out of pure convenience, so much as anything else. Everyone needs a place to lay their head, and the kingdom army isn’t so stringent as to assign sleeping quarters, so there’s no reason why everyone can’t indulge in a tiny bit of nostalgia—bittersweet as that nostalgia may be—to salvage the memory of those peaceful monastery days. Mercedes and Annette can still hold their sleepovers and tea parties, and Ashe and Dedue can still wake up and be in the greenhouse five minutes later, and the professor can still meet with her charges in her bedroom-turned-office-turned-war room, the very same room that was always meant to be a temporary arrangement. Some things haven’t changed, and they’re taken as comforts, especially during a time when the rest of Fódlan is changing forever.

Dimitri reclaims his room last. He nudges the door open with his shoulder and stands still, breathing in the dust like he’s returned from nothing more than an innocent trip on the road. It’s _his_ room, and it’s been waiting for _him_ these five years and a half, and it’s seen no visitors in all that time except maybe bandits poking their heads in and finding nothing worth stealing from his disappointingly bare drawers. The wardrobe still contains his extra school uniform, with his poor stitching still holding the cuff together after all this time, and promptly, he stuffs Areadbhar inside and collapses face first onto the bed without even removing his armor and cloak. He falls asleep and dreams of nothing and wakes up feeling better than he has in years.

Goddess knows how he managed. For so long, he was beholden by his madness, and without it, there’s only shame. There’s shame in how everyone forgives him so quickly. There’s shame when the kingdom soldiers hail him, bow to him, and revere him like a leader, instead of flinching away in disgust, like he’s become so accustomed to. There’s shame when Felix silently glares at the empty coffin meant to represent his father, not letting a single tear fall until after the funeral is done.

Shame is the only thing left. There’s nothing else.

And now that he has nothing, Dimitri is free to start building himself anew.

He spreads maps of Fhirdiad on the desk before him, going over them again and again until his candle is burned down to a stub. Yawning, he sits up straight in his chair and stretches out his arms, then smooths out a map of the castle again. His childhood home looks so strangely foreign when put to paper. One more time before bed, he tells himself. The city ramparts have been fortified with imperial magic. Massive, autonomous suits of armor have been witnessed stomping through the streets. Cornelia will likely be commanding her forces from the ground. Every angle must be considered—every facet, every single thing that could possibly go wrong, it all _must_ be taken into account. No amount of preparation will ever be enough.

The thought of rushing in without a plan is unimaginable to him, now. The fact that he’s been doing it for five years is nothing short of staggering. Dimitri rubs his face in his hands, in remembrance, in sheer exhaustion. He needn’t remind himself that Rodrigue’s soul is just one among many.

Again, the shame.

“Dimitri, can I ask you something?”

At the sound of her voice, he looks up to where Marianne is sitting cross-legged atop his bed, modest in her gray nightclothes. A textbook lies open on the sheets in front of her. He nods. How rare it is, for her to ask for anything.

She points to the open book, although he can’t see what’s on the page. “Can I try healing your eye?”

Instead of answering, Dimitri leans back, sighs, and self-consciously peels off his eyepatch. The scar underneath is sore tonight. It’s not a straight-line wound that can be sewn back together, it’s just a dull, directionless patch of his body; one without feeling, one that no longer works. Slowly, he asks, “Do you think you can?”

Marianne places her palms flat on her knees. “I’m not sure. But, um...I want to try, at least.”

“I don’t know if it’s possible,” he admits. It’s still not an answer. “Even if you fixed the damage, I have a feeling that it would not bring me back my sight. Marianne, where did you get that book?”

“It was in the infirmary,” she says, and holds it up to show him. Cross-section diagrams are illustrated across the pages, of muscles colored bright red, of internal organs, of bones and joints and roots of teeth. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s so detailed...”

Dimitri stands up from his desk, stretching his back, his maps and eyepatch forgotten. “May I see it?”

She scootches backward so he can sit on the bed, his _own_ bed. All her life, Marianne has been accommodating for others. Never once has she complained. If he can help it, Dimitri will never give her reason to again.

He flips backward through the pages until he finds Seteth’s telltale signature decorating the inside cover, and stops. “It’s from Abyss,” he says mildly. “Many of the books that were banned ended up in the library down there. Most of it was just obscene...although, why did a medical textbook end up in Abyss? This doesn’t seem particularly blasphemous.”

Marianne points again. “Um, there was a note...”

He finds a small paper memo attached, and reads it while Marianne takes the textbook back and starts flipping through pages. “ _Since white magic can be used to a similar end, autopsies were deemed taboo_. _A notable cardinal asserted that if medical science were to excel over faith-based white magic, it would destabilize the foundation of the church_.” He looks up, unsure of what to do with the information. It goes without saying that the foundation of the church is already the least stable it’s been in a millennium.

Marianne’s lips tighten, but she doesn’t say anything, either. She just finds the page she was searching for, and two different diagrams of the human eye stare blankly ahead: one as seen from the front, and one as seen from the side. Both of them happen to be the exact same shade of blue he sees every morning in the mirror. Dimitri looks over the page, at the eyes that might as well be his. The color is an omen, perhaps. Either that, or a complete coincidence.

Just to make the point, Dimitri says, “It’s forbidden knowledge, then.”

“Knowledge is knowledge,” she replies. “It was forbidden because it works...not because it _doesn’t_ work. It’s not good or bad by itself. If it can help us, then I think it’s worth reading, even, um, even if the church...” She trails off, and gestures at the book—Dimitri knows what she means. She’s determined, now. “It definitely helps me visualize, so, um...can I try healing your eye?”

“If you so wish,” he murmurs, and begins to lean backward. “Should I...”

“Lie down here, and look up straight,” she instructs him, and he obeys, resting his head in her lap. Marianne peers over him upside down, and he tries to look her in the eyes like he still has two, trying to mimic the action, at least. They’re splayed out lengthwise; she’s bunched up by his pillows, and his legs dangle off the end of the bed, not quite touching the floor. “Okay...” She breathes in. “Firstly, how did you lose it?”

“It was in Charon territory,” he recalls. “I ambushed a group of imperial soldiers. One of them caught me across the face with his sword.”

There’s silence.

“It’s not much of a story,” he lamely adds.

She blinks at him, still upside down, and he realizes she never expected it to be one. There is so much he’s left unsaid—those imperial soldiers, for one, are doubtlessly no longer among the living. And she knows. Of course she knows. A shiver courses through him, his skin prickling, his own body rejecting itself from pure revulsion. Anything, to crawl away from the disgusting beast within.

Marianne places her hands down on either side of his face, and suddenly, he feels very, very tired.

“How long ago was it?” she asks.

He hesitates. There’s no real memory of it happening. He only remembers piecing the events together in retrospect, after the blinding pain finally subsided, yet the blinding remained. To dredge up one specific moment in his memory is like dredging a sea of blood in search of one specific drop.

“Two years ago,” he decides.

“Keep looking at me, Dimitri. Has anyone ever tried to heal it before?”

Surely, she’s just humoring him at this point. “No. Never.”

“It looks like your cornea is the most damaged,” she tells him, and tilts his head slightly to the left. “So, it might not be as bad as it looks. I can see where the cut was. It goes to your...your _iris_. A lot of it is scratched out, but, um, that’s not bad. It’s basically a muscle, so I think I can fix it. The rest of your eye seems fine, underneath. Your, um...” He can feel her glance away for a second, double-checking the textbook. “...Your _vitreous gel_ is all still there. That’s good. If you lost any, your eyeball might have collapsed.”

In spite of himself, Dimitri tenses up. “Is that...something I need to be worried about?”

“No,” she says, a bit too quickly. “I’m going to try and heal it now. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agrees, and then the white magic begins to glow. The only sound in the room is Marianne’s careful breathing, in and out, in and out, as her magic sinks into his skin. His head is still at rest in her lap, and as she focuses directly on his damaged eye it’s a conscious effort on Dimitri’s part not to blink her hand away. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Not anymore. Everything about Marianne smells of safety, and comfort, and brushed teeth, and it would be so good to fall asleep in her arms like this and stay that way forever, if only their world at war would allow it.

Eventually, her hands lift from his face. The only difference he can feel is the area around his right eye being slightly less sore than it was previously.

“Did it work?” she asks in a subdued voice. Even now, she will not allow herself to be excited. “Can you see?”

Dimitri raises a hand and covers his left eye while glancing around deliberately with his right. There would be such joy in her face, he thinks, and suddenly, he’s _desperate_ for it. Healing, like praying, is so often futile; Marianne endures the worst of both, and there’s nothing he wants more than to see her look of triumph, for her to finally be rewarded for her devotion, for her research to finally yield results, and all it will take for him to put a smile on her face is for his eye—his _stubborn_ , _shattered_ , _infernal_ eye—to simply overcome the brokenness of him and _look at her_.

He is not surprised when he sees nothing.

The look on his face must say it all, because when he sits upright and uncovers his working eye Marianne is already running her fingertips over the leathery pages of the textbook, as if new solutions will suddenly appear that weren’t there before. Dimitri shakes his head.

“Sorry,” he mutters. It’s not her fault. It’s not his fault either, but the burning need to apologize is still there. That’s just how the world works, these days.

“Oh...I don’t know what I did wrong,” she says helplessly, and turns another page. More diagrams of the same blue eye are displayed, this time with slender red muscles attached. “I pictured it exactly like in the book, and t-the scratch is fixed...”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. My eye was already infected.”

The words are meant as comfort, and it’s not until after they slip out of his mouth that he realizes how likely they are to have the opposite effect.

Marianne looks at him, doubtful. “...Are you sure?”

“It must have been,” Dimitri says. Again, it isn’t an answer. “I never washed or dressed my injuries. I never sought any kind of help. I simply went back to the forest, with blood running down my face. Like an animal.” He points to one of the diagrams at random, like it will prove whatever point he’s trying to make. “The infection must have taken root deep below. It can’t be fixed. That is the price I paid for my foolishness.”

Slowly, Marianne closes the textbook and places it down on his desk, and sits on the bed in silence, clutching the edge of the mattress in her palms. She stares down at the floor, with nothing to do, now that he’s ruined her hopes for the evening.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

“Don’t apologize. Marianne, how many times have you already saved my life?”

There’s a long moment before she answers, “Perhaps...more than you’ve saved mine.”

He cracks a weak smile. “You’ve lost count, in other words.”

“I was never counting to begin with,” she says, and leans closer on the bed, her cheek resting on his shoulder. Gentle fingers stroke over his back, with only his thin nightshirt protecting her touch from the scars underneath. But she knows they’re there. She’s seen them all.

“I never allowed my wounds to slow me down,” Dimitri says suddenly. “I was so proud of myself, at the time. I believed it proved my devotion.”

Quietly, Marianne asks him, “What do you believe now?”

The memories surge up, swirling around before they amass into a mighty tide, and they come crashing over him all at once.

“...It hurt,” he whispers. “It hurt _so bad_.”

Her weight shifts against him as she continues rubbing his back, and it’s enough to make him shudder again—not from his pain, but from her _acceptance_ , vital and pure. For five years, this is what he’s deprived himself of. Dimitri’s voice pitches up, trying and failing to convey his sheer emotion. “I wanted it to _stop_. More than anything else. But I could never stop it myself. If I so much as tried, my father would have...seen me as weak. And I so I roamed the ruins of the kingdom like a wild beast, spreading my suffering to others. I believed that there was no redemption for me—and the more I believed it, the truer it became.”

He looks down on himself, and startles when he sees his hands once again running red with blood. When he blinks, they are clean again, and only scars remain dotted over his arms—a few of them healed by Marianne, and many more he just let fester, untreated. What’s left of his vision rarely plays tricks on him anymore. Perhaps it’s a sign he should go to sleep. Marianne keeps holding him steady, her two eyes shining at him through the dim candlelight, only inches away from his nose. Compared to her, he’ll never be whole again.

“If I had perished, the whole kingdom would have fallen to the eternal flames along with me,” he says, voice heavy with regrets. “If not for some whim of fate, or stroke of luck, I could have died a hundred times over. The blade that took my eye could have easily cut my throat, and I would have bled out in the forest and died with no soul. I should have taken back Fhirdiad years ago.”

“We’re taking back Fhirdiad _now_ ,” she calmly reminds him, and Dimitri nearly laughs through his hysterical relief. Something within his sleep-deprived mind just finds it so absurdly ridiculous—he’s been to the war meetings, studied all the maps, yet it’s not until Marianne is saying so that he allows himself to truly believe it. They really are going to liberate the city. Marianne will be at his side when they do.

“I’m so sorry to burden you with this,” he says. “This is hardly a confessional. My pain, my injuries...” His hand drifts upward to his face. “...My missing eye. All of it was my own fault. It was never your duty to heal any of it.”

Her own hand reaches up and takes his, and she leans on him gently to hug around his waist, her face nuzzling into his shoulder. Her cheek is so _soft_.

“I want to heal everyone,” she says, sleepily. “I want...to do all that I can.”

“As do I.” Dimitri stares grimly ahead, but automatically returns the hug, nearly on the verge of falling asleep himself. “My only wish is that I realized it sooner. Cornelia’s reign is just another scar, one on the people of Faerghus as a whole. It’s...not your duty, either. And yet...”

“I’ll be there,” Marianne mutters into his shoulder, and yawns quietly before continuing. “You know...my adoptive father told me to stay out of the war. Actually, he was very, very adamant about it. When people started finding out that you were alive, he wrote me a letter, ordering me to come home.”

Dimitri remains silent. Marianne’s relationship with her adoptive father is complicated, to say the least. If nothing else, Dimitri can respect Margrave Edmund’s desire to keep Marianne safe, even though he himself is the one guilty of leading her across a dozen battlefields.

By now, she’s leaning on him even further, so Dimitri lets her push him into the pillows, and she lays her head across his chest. Their hands are still intertwined, and she shuts her eyes, listening to the muffled beating of his heart. “He sent me another letter a few days ago,” Marianne murmurs, as Dimitri pulls her in, closer and more comfortable against him. “He just reached an agreement with Count Hevring. Edmund ports are open to Adrestian merchants again.” Her eyes suddenly snap open, fully awake, piercing through Dimitri’s gaze. “Does that bother you?”

“Even the empire needs its wares,” he says, and quickly chastises himself. It’s not usually like him to give such evasive answers, like how he’s been doing all evening. “No, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Sometimes, he votes with Gloucester and Ordelia, and sometimes he votes with Riegan and Goneril. He’s always the tiebreaker. He enjoys having that... _power_. It means Edmund gets more influence.” Marianne sighs, and closes her eyes again, letting Dimitri absently brush the hair out of her face. “Do you think that makes him a bad person?”

“He’s doing what benefits him.”

“But do you think that makes him a bad person?” she repeats.

Dimitri pauses. “No.”

“Neither do I,” she says, and then yawns again. “...If I had listened to him, then I would be sitting at home right now, in neutral territory...where I would be _safe_. I don’t think I would be able to stand it.” She rolls off Dimitri, falling onto the bed next to him and sliding herself under the covers. “And that’s why I’m here with you, where I _know_ that I can help people, instead of staying at home, where I can only help myself. Are you going to go to sleep now?”

“Yes,” Dimitri replies, contemplative, and gets up to extinguish the dying candle on his desk. The flame is barely holding out over a pool of melted wax, and Dimitri inhales, preparing to blow it out, when he catches sight of himself in his vanity mirror and freezes.

“It looks better,” he says, astonished.

“Hmm?” From under the covers, Marianne pokes her head out and sees him with his face to the mirror, propping his eyelids open with his fingers. “Oh. Only some surface damage...”

“But it looks _better_!” he insists excitedly. The stringy red clotting is gone, and the blue part of his eye—the _iris_ , Marianne had called it—is more or less circular again, and the whole eyeball just seems _fuller_ , somehow. Up close, it’s still glossy and inert, but from a distance, it looks fine, it matches his other one—it might _actually_ fool an onlooker, assuming they don’t already know. Dimitri tilts his head around, trying to view himself from different angles. An irresistible smile is spreading across his face, his reflection is smiling back, and he decides that that’s a good last thing to see before blowing out the candle and plunging his room back into the darkness of night.

Healing is a process. This, he’s been told over and over. As he stumbles back to bed, Dimitri hopes that Marianne can somehow feel his smile radiating through the dark.

He will never walk the path of the healer, but he takes solace in knowing that Marianne will never walk the path of the beast. The fabled Blutgang, currently stashed in his wardrobe alongside Areadbhar, is proof enough of that.

Marianne walks her own path. She’s chosen to walk with him.

He can’t find any shame in that.

**Author's Note:**

> Named after the song Blue Orpheus by Todd Rundgren  
> Why doesn’t anybody ever try to heal Dimitri’s eye? His injury never gets brought up ingame, except for in a few throwaway lines in the advice box. You’d think something like a missing eye would be a serious detriment and something he would try to get fixed (not that it really stops him from chucking javelins across the map with 95% hit) especially since he has access to magic and healers and magical healers, but no, no one ever brings it up. idk I just feel like the game treats his injury as a cool cosmetic part of his character, rather than a legitimate disability.  
> Again, this fic was supposed to be a drabble. I don't know how I ended up with another 3k.


End file.
